Chris Granger / The Times-PicayuneAndy Antippas' planned a renegade exhibit at the St. Claude Collective in the old Universal Furniture, with works by 56 local artists, but the site eventually became part of Prospect.1 New Orleans.

STRANGE ARTFELLOWS

A former furniture store houses an art gallery, police station and ... you name it.
What do one of Crescent City's premier real-estate developers, a Voodoo priestess, the combative owner of one of the city's most adventuresome art galleries, the New Orleans Police Department, and a pair of French artists who produce the tackiest photos you've ever seen have in common?

One way or another, they all share the humble Universal Furniture store on the corner of St. Claude and St. Roch avenues. It's not the most attractive building. Sheet metal panels have fallen off of the old Jetsons-era facade, leaving gaps like missing teeth. But, like a homely boyfriend, it's what's inside that counts.

The 1928 furniture store was looted after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, then stood empty for several dismal months as the neighborhood around it struggled to get back on its feet. Meanwhile, Pres Kabacoff (the developer with a Bohemian streak), Sallie Ann Glassman (the priestess, known for anti-hurricane ceremonies among other things), and Andy Antippas (the gallery owner), plus a cadre of self-styled ecologists and community activists conceived a community center to serve the needs of the battered St. Claude Avenue corridor.

It would be a place where neighbors could shop in a cooperative grocery, take yoga classes, seek crisis counseling, receive alternative medicine treatments, and attend lectures on everything from green rebuilding to checkbook balancing. Where better than the spacious, centrally located former furniture store?

Though there's a pink sign touting the New Orleans Healing Center hanging over the door -- decorated with a Voodoo-style symbol for hope and energy -- the center hasn't gotten off the ground. But the rag-tag building has already begun serving the community.

The NOPD's Fifth District flooded after the levee failures in 2005 and needed a temporary home. In fall 2007, Kabacoff invited the police to move into the furniture store where they remain -- surrounded by avant-garde art.

At about the time the police were setting up housekeeping, word of Prospect.1 New Orleans was spreading through the art community. It was a good news, bad news story for Crescent City artists. The good news: Big-time New York art curator Dan Cameron planned to produce the largest contemporary art show in U.S. history, drawing thousands of well-heeled collectors and art tourists. The bad news: The vast majority of New Orleans artists weren't invited to be in it.

"It sounded so elitist," Antippas said.

Feeling spurned, he proposed a renegade exhibit of art by 50 Crescent City rejectees that would "give the finger to Prospect.1." Local art would fill the former showrooms of the old furniture building that lay in the path of Prospect.1 visitors heading toward the exhibits in the nearby Lower 9th Ward.

Chris Granger / The Times-PicayuneAlan Gerson's army of tiny gray men call to mind ancient Chinese ceramic soldiers, but these are sculpted from artist's erasers.

But in an inclusive gesture, Cameron added one of the official Prospect.1 exhibits to Antippas' salon de refuses. And not just any exhibit. He placed the popular Parisian photography team Pierre et Gilles in the back room of the furniture store, ensuring that tourists would have to pass through the all-New Orleans exhibit to reach the international art stars. Cameron felt the urban settings of the Frenchmen's photos somehow matched the gritty ruinous store interior.

Pierre et Gilles create glittering melodramatically staged photos of exquisitely handsome young people in the apparent throws of passion. Their photos may remind you of especially ribald romance novel covers -- slick, seductive, abundantly sexual and a bit stupid. The tattooed sailor with the tears in his eyes is a personal favorite. The vampire girl with the bloody fingers is also a guilty pleasure. The nude Adonis covered with seaweed sticks in the mind. It's safe to say that Pierre et Gilles' playfully lurid pictures are not something one would expect to find under the same roof as a police station.

Except maybe in New Orleans, where strange bedfellows never seem all that strange.

Chris Granger / The Times-PicayuneProspect.1 New Orleans' Parisian art team Pierre et Gilles' satiric photos share space with local artwork at the St. Claude Collective in the old Universal Furniture store.

Speaking of the Big Easy, Antippas' rebellious show of local artists, known as the "The St. Claude Collective," is as crowded and undisciplined as Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras. But several artworks struggle to stand out in the visual anarchy.

Don't miss:

Alan Gerson's sad army of tiny gray men - like those heroic ancient Chinese ceramic soldiers, only sculpted from stretchy artist's erasers.

David Sullivan's sinister psychedelic amoebae video, displayed in a tunnel of trash bags - shouldn't there be Grateful Dead music in the background?

Alex Podesta's inexplicably disturbing plush bunny with heroic twin riders -- how could you miss it, it's as big as a buffalo.

Printmaker Jenny LeBlanc's very strange doctor's office installation. LeBlanc uses her girdled backside as a stamp to produce images of her lungs on the paper covering of the medical examination table, while coughing up green feathers. It's a masterpiece of endearing illogic, just like the multiuse furniture store that houses it, which is just like the make-it-up-as-you-go city in which it stands.

PROSPECT.1 NEW ORLEANS AT UNIVERSAL FURNITURE

What: Satiric photos by Parisian art team Pierre et Gilles, plus the "St. Claude Collective," a group show of works by 56 New Orleans artists. When: Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m., through Jan. 18. Where: The Old Universal Furniture Store, 2372 St. Claude Ave., 504.715.3968.
Admission: Free. Video: To take a video tour of the exhibit go to www.nola.com/arts/ and click on Doug MacCash's photos.